For Episode 157 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast, Rennie welcomes back Fritz Gilbert.Fritz retired in 2018 at the age of 55 after a 33-year career in Corporate America. For the past 8 years he has been writing about his preparation for, and transition into, retirement on The Retirement Manifesto, the award-winning blog he founded 3 years prior to retirement. In addition to the blog, Fritz published his first book in 2020, Keys to a Successful Retirement, which captures his key things he learned from his journey into retirement.
For Episode 157 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast, Rennie welcomes back Fritz Gilbert.Fritz retired in 2018 at the age of 55 after a 33-year career in Corporate America. For the past 8 years he has been writing about his preparation for, and transition into, retirement on The Retirement Manifesto, the award-winning blog he founded 3 years prior to retirement. In addition to the blog, Fritz published his first book in 2020, Keys to a Successful Retirement, which captures his key things he learned from his journey into retirement.
Interested in some key things to help you achieve a great retirement?
In this episode, Rennie and Fritz cover:
01:45 Rennie and Fritz discuss a cousin of Rennie’s who is about to retire and doesn’t have a concrete plan for the non-financial aspects, which Fritz shares is not uncommon.
03:45 The word “retirement” and how it makes Rennie uncomfortable, and how Fritz sees it.
05:16 How Fritz likes to refer to retirement as the starting line and how that fits for everyone including the FIRE community (Financial Independence Retire Early).
07:29 Fritz shares an update on the charity he and his wife run – Freedom for Fido – and how it has grown in the last two years.
10:45 The things Fritz feels that, beyond a paycheck, need to be considered to position you to have a great retirement.
12:33 Fritz shares the story of how a friend of his tried to unsuccessfully use his work skills with his wife at home after retirement!
13:16 How the life changes retirement brings can impact everyone in the household and why discussing that ahead of time is important.
15:59 Fritz can be contacted via his website theretirementmanifesto.com where he also has over 400 articles that he has written on his retirement journey.
“But if you think a little bit deeper, and this is what you realize, when you leave work, paid work, voluntarily, or maybe not voluntarily. But when you're no longer working, you start realizing all of the non-financial benefits you also received from work. And thinking about how you're going to replace all of those in retirement, or once you're financially independent, that's where your focus should be. And it is things like relationship, right? You have relationships in the office, or in the plant, if you work in a plant. You have a sense of purpose. You've got a structure to your day. You've got objectives. You're driving towards achieving something. You get that sense of accomplishment when you put together a presentation and give it to the boss and you get the little pat on the head and say, Hey, good job on the presentation. You've got all of those things that just are gone, the day you leave. And most people don't realize the importance of all of those non-financial benefits from work until they're gone.” – Fritz Gilbert
To learn more about Fritz and read his extensive blog visit theretirementmanifesto.com.
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Rennie Gabriel 00:09
Hi folks, welcome to Episode 157 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast. This is where we talk about money tips, techniques, attitudes, information and provide inspiration around your money and your business. I'm your host, Rennie Gabriel. In past episodes, we spoke about how to build an Income and Expense Report, how to measure the level of pleasure based on where you spend your money, how to track your money in 5 to 10 seconds, and what to look for on your net worth statement to see how close you are to having Complete Financial Choice®. Last week, we had Chellie Campbell, who supports people to get over money disorders like spending bulimia and income anorexia. Today, we welcome back one of our guests who was on the show a couple of years ago, Fritz Gilbert. Fritz retired in 2018, at the age of 55, after a 33 year career in corporate America. For the past eight years, he's been writing about his preparation for and transition into retirement on The Retirement Manifesto. It's an award-winning blog that he founded three years prior to retirement. In addition to the blog, Fritz published his first book in 2020, Keys to a Successful Retirement, which captures the key things he learned from his journey into retirement. Fritz, welcome to the Wealth On Income Podcast.
Fritz Gilbert 01:42
Rennie, nice to be talking to you again. Thanks for having me back.
Rennie Gabriel 01:45
Yeah, well, before we got started, we were chatting about a cousin of mine, who sold his business two and a half years ago. He's been a consultant for the last two and a half years. In December that ends, and I asked him, Steve, what are you going to do when you retire? What kind of plans do you have? And about all he could say was, 'Well, I think I'll work two days a week for the six months after my full retirement, and, you know, I want to travel'. That doesn't sound like a concrete plan to me, and I'm really concerned about him.
Fritz Gilbert 02:23
So yeah, you know, that's interesting, Rennie. And I would suspect, if you interviewed 100 retirees, or soon to be retirees, that's not as uncommon as you might think. And I was probably the exact opposite. I really thought a lot about what my retirement was going to be. The one thing I would say to your cousin is, you know, research has proven that the way to have the most, the way to increase your odds of a successful transition to retirement is to take time prior to retirement to plan for the non-financial aspects of it. And, you know, I've heard from so many people about how difficult the transition was, and they never saw it coming, how big of a change it was going to be in life, etc, etc. He's probably going to go through some of that, you know, and whether you, whether you focus on it beforehand, or whether you focus on it afterwards, at some point, you're going to have to think about it. And it's just a lot easier to think about it on the front end. It makes the transition . . . You know, my transition, I think is an example. Absolutely smooth, loved it from the day I retired. I'm five years in, I've never regretted it for a minute. And I attribute a lot of that to being so probably obsessive. I think I probably planned more than you really need to, but it served me well. You know, it's been smooth because of it. So there's there's a continuum, you know, and there's a right place to be. He's probably too far to the left. I was probably too far to the right. You know, right in the middle somewhere is where people need to think about, spend some time on. It matters.
Rennie Gabriel 03:45
Yeah. Now, one of the things I said when we first spoke a couple years ago, was I don't even like the word retirement. To me, it conjures up a picture of someone sitting on their front porch with a torn t-shirt and a can of beer, watching daytime TV. And you know, and the health and everything else just declines, real fast. And the best example, was from a gal who was teaching some workshops, who spoke about being raised on a ranch and saying, When a cow can no longer be productive, we put it out to pasture to let it die. And the term for that is we're going to retire the cow.
Fritz Gilbert 04:26
Yeah.
Rennie Gabriel 04:27
You know, and maybe that's also a part of my own struggle. I'm 75 now. I've got this podcast. I write a weekly email. I do some business coaching. I'm trying to transition my grandson into supporting me with the apartment buildings we own. What I'm recognizing, well, one, "retirement" is a dirty word to me. And what I created instead, and actually trademarked it, was the term Complete Financial Choice®. So what it means is, I have the financial resources to choose to do whatever I want to do. If I want to work I can. If I don't want to I don't have to. If I want to travel, I can. I don't have . . . I can choose whatever I want. And the difficulty I've had for over 10 years now is, what to choose?
Fritz Gilbert 05:16
Yeah, well, and I think, you know, regardless of what you call it, I don't get too hung up on the nomenclature. I think what matters is, there comes a point in your life where you do achieve that financial independence. And taking advantage of that, to change your life, to live it the way that you choose to live it, instead of the way you had to live it when you were dependent on a paycheck, is really what it's about. Call it whatever you will. But you know, I think about the FIRE community, you know - Financial Independence Retire Early - and somebody said that it should be, Financial Independence Recreational Employment, which is not a bad thing, right. If you want to work, work, you're doing it for recreation, now, you're not doing it for the money. And that's the difference. So I don't have a problem with the word retirement. When you retire, you cross what I call the starting line. And that's the point in life where you are free to start anything you want to start and do anything you want to do without having to take the financial considerations as the primary importance. And so I look at it more as a start than a putting the cow out to, you know, die in the field. But I'm not hung up on the word. I know a lot of people do kind of argue, you know, that that clearly is probably the historical stereotype of retirement. But I look at them, Okay, you can be working as you are, as I would argue I am right, I'm doing my blog, I'm running a charity with my wife. Those are "work" in quotation marks. But it's not work that I'm doing because I have to do. It's work that I choose to do. So I'm retired, but I'm working. I'm still retired.
Rennie Gabriel 06:47
That's why I called it, Complete Financial Choice®.
Fritz Gilbert 06:49
Yeah, it's a great word, great choice for it, a great term for it.
Rennie Gabriel 06:53
I'm glad you brought up the charity because, you know, if you recall, I donate 100% of the profits from the work I do to various animal and to veteran charities. And, as an example, if someone goes to the homepage on my website, they can donate directly to one of the charities that rescues dogs and trains service animals for soldiers who've come back with issues.
Fritz Gilbert 07:19
Saving lives two at a time I applaud what you do. It's awesome.
Rennie Gabriel 07:22
Thank you. And so I remember yours, something about saving Fido or whatever. Tell me more about that.
Fritz Gilbert 07:29
Well, Rennie, it's actually called Freedom for Fido and we build free dog fences for low-income families with dogs on chains or not, they're not always on chains They might be running loose, worried about getting hit on the road. You know, they're trying to improve their situation for their dog, but they don't have the financial means to do it. When we talked two years ago, we were pretty much just getting started. We started four years ago. It took us about a year to figure out what we were doing. And now we just celebrated our 100th fence build a couple of months ago. We've got 200 volunteers. It's turned into a massive thing. And it's totally fulfilling, very time consuming. But again, it's something that my wife and I have chosen to do. And we get such fulfillment out of it. When you see that dog getting released from that chain, for the first time in its life . . . And we build big fences. I mean, they're typically 300 feet worth of fencing. So if you think like a football field, it's roughly that long, obviously make a square out of it instead of a straight line. But you know, we make big areas for these dogs to run. And the first time you see that dog run, it never gets old. After 100 fences, we still get that same thrill. And you know, it's not only seeing the dog's life improve, but the things that we didn't expect, is there's developed an entire sense of community around it, we call it the Fido family. And think about what makes a successful retirement. It's having a group of people that, you know, that relationship thing. So we've created this whole big community of dog lovers that get together. I'll give you an example. There's a text group of maybe 20 of the most loyal volunteers. Friday at one o'clock, somebody might say, 'Hey, you want to meet at Grumpies tonight?' Grumpies is a microbrew in our town. So you know, five o'clock, we'll have 20 of us that just bombard one of the little micro brews on very short notice. And you know, we're not really drinkers. We'll have one beer and stay there for an hour and just chat. But it's just, it's that spontaneous connection with other people. And all of our volunteers feel the same way. They're like, 'I love the Fido family as much as I do helping the dogs.' You know, so it's that, and then the gratitude that you get, seeing the difference you can make in the life of somebody who really needs help, as you've experienced. It's hugely rewarding.
Rennie Gabriel 09:43
Yeah, and you know, to your point, I mean, here is a little rescue dog.
Fritz Gilbert 09:48
Ah, there you go.
Rennie Gabriel 09:50
Yeah, you know, he came in the room here, wants to sit with me. So he's doing that now. But one of the things you alluded to is the community that's created. And I remember a study that General Motors had done years and years ago. After 30 years, they could retire with full benefits. So if they started at 20, at 50, they could retire. Unfortunately, their survey found that within five years of retirement - didn't matter what age - most of them had died.
Fritz Gilbert 10:22
Wow.
Rennie Gabriel 10:23
And the reason for that, I believe, touches on what you said is the community, the ability to have a purpose, to contribute and connect with other people. I mean, someone working at General Motors and they retire, they're not communicating or connecting with their workers anymore, and what sense of purpose do they have? And that's why their health declined so quickly.
Fritz Gilbert 10:45
Yeah. And going back to how we opened this discussion about your cousin. You know, if you think about work, the first thing that comes to mind is the paycheck.
Rennie Gabriel 10:54
Yeah.
Fritz Gilbert 10:55
But if you think a little bit deeper, and this is what you realize, when you leave work, paid work, voluntarily, or maybe not voluntarily. But when you're no longer working, you start realizing all of the non-financial benefits you also received from work. And thinking about how you're going to replace all of those in retirement, or once you're financially independent, that's where your focus should be. And it is things like relationship, right? You have relationships in the office, or in the plant, if you work in a plant. You have a sense of purpose. You've got, you know, a structure to your day. You've got objectives. You're driving towards achieving something. You get that sense of accomplishment when you put together a presentation and give it to the boss and you get the little pat on the head and say, 'Hey, good job on the presentation.' You've got all of those things that just are gone, the day you leave. And most people don't realize the importance of all of those non-financial benefits from work until they're gone. And then they kind of go through this transitory thing where they feel off, but they don't really know why. And it's usually driven by, let's call it those four or five non-financial attributes you used to get, are no longer in your life. And you're kind of, you feel a little bit adrift without them. They're hugely important.
Rennie Gabriel 12:15
Oh, yeah. And I'm thinking about, you know, as you said that and someone retires, goes home, and the wife says, 'I can't stand having him around the house. You know, I've been keeping this house intact for the last 20, 30, 40 years. I don't need his input'.
Fritz Gilbert 12:33
Exactly. Yeah, I got to tell you a funny story. I put it in my book, but I'll tell the story now. A friend of mine retired. And he was like one of these optimization guys at work, you know, he always looked at more efficient ways to do things and a continuous improvement type guy. So he's home, and, you know, he's retired, and his wife's putting dishes away in the dishwasher. And he comes up behind her and says, 'Honey', he says, 'Why do you do it that way? It'd be more efficient if you did . . .' You know, he starts trying to improve dishwashing loading. And she goes, 'Honey, I've been loading the dishwasher for 30 years, it works just fine. Go do something else'. Like get out of my space. You know, so yeah, the relationship with the stay-at-home - not necessarily stay-at-home, maybe you both retired at the same time, or whatever, but . . .
Rennie Gabriel 13:12
He hasn't got it figured it out. Or she hasn't figured it out yet.
Fritz Gilbert 13:16
Yeah, that can be a source of conflict. And, I think the thing that you don't necessarily think about is it's - let's say it's a stay-at-home spouse and a full-time working spouse. You always think about, Oh, retirement's the full-time working spouse that you know, that's the big adjustment. I would argue it's just as big of an adjustment for the stay-at-home spouse to have a spouse that retires and then suddenly home. It's a huge adjustment for both of you. Just like talking about and thinking about how you're going to replace these attributes that you once got from work, you also need to spend time with your significant other, talking about how is our life going to be when we're together all the time? How much time do you want to do your stuff? How much time do I need to do my stuff? You know, how much do . . . We don't want to do everything together. We'll drive each other crazy. So what's the boundaries there? So that once you retire, you can take off and go mountain biking once a week because that's something you've already talked about. And you don't feel guilty about it, because you've kind of pre-agreed. Yeah, I know he needs to do that because he needs to be out in the woods. Talking about myself, obviously. You know, there are boundaries. And there are things that if you don't have that discussion prior to, it can lead to conflict, because she doesn't understand why you're out riding a mountain bike. Or you don't understand why she's still going out to lunch with her friends when you know you're not working anymore. You want her home with you. All those things can cause conflict. And that's why retirement such a big transition.
Rennie Gabriel 14:38
Yeah, this is a beautiful conversation. And I know it's going to be helpful to my cousin. I'm going to send him a link. When we're done, I'll give you some details on when this is going to be broadcast.
Fritz Gilbert 14:49
Okay.
Rennie Gabriel 14:50
Ahead of that, I'm going to send this to my cousin.
Fritz Gilbert 14:53
Perfect. It will be interesting to get his feedback. Hopefully he listens, because I would say your cousin is a proxy for probably hundreds of thousands of people that could potentially hear this. Right? I would say there are probably hundreds of thousands of people that are within, because there's what, 10,000 Baby Boomers a day are retiring right now. So, you know, it's clearly 100, maybe millions of baby boomers who are going to retire, let's say in the next year, who may not be thinking about this stuff yet. And that's fine, you can choose to do it that way. But recognize you're going to make that transition more difficult, because you're suddenly going to be home with your spouse, and you're going to be telling her how to load the dishwasher, and she's going to say, Get out of my space. Right? All these things that we laugh about, you're going to experience those. And so your cousin, A: we're not bashing on you, cousin, right? We're doing it because you represent an awful lot of people that don't recognize the importance of thinking about this stuff.
Rennie Gabriel 15:46
Exactly. One of the things that I want to ask you, which is really important, for people who want to talk more to you or find out more about this topic, what's the best way for them to get a hold of you?
Fritz Gilbert 15:59
Yeah, I'm on theretirementmanifesto.com. It's got an email link on my page, you can you can reach out to me, I've written something like 400 articles now. So searching through my archives, any topic you're interested in, chances are probably touched on it, related to retirement anyway. Yeah, I mean, I'm all about . . . my byline is, Helping People Achieve a Great Retirement. And, you know, having been through it, and I think that's a lot of the feedback I get from my readers is, it's unusual to have somebody that's retired, that's a blogger, right? Most people are kind of the FIRE community. They're working to get there, whatever. Having a baby boomer, I'm 60, so somebody that's kind of in our demographic that's writing about the experience. There aren't too many of us. So anybody that's interested, yeah, take a look. It's real. It's just me, I'm transparent. I'm not a financial advisor. But I can talk for days about all the financial elements of it. But what I've found in the last couple of years in my writing is I've focused a lot less on the financial, because once you get into retirement, you kind of have what you have, and you're not doing things for money anymore, you kind of sort that part out. And you really do spend a lot more time thinking about the non-financial stuff that we've been touching base on. So I would say my writing has shifted to reflect that. But if somebody is a year away from retirement, hey scroll back through my archives, you can see I actually put a timeline on there. And you can see when I was a year away from retirement. You can see exactly what I was thinking at that point in my journey. So I did that on purpose to try to help people, you know, forever with the content that I've written.
Rennie Gabriel 17:21
Well, and obviously it's worked because that was the past, and you're living that present. And, you know, the transition, like you said, it's been terrific. So I'll have in the show notes, the Retirement Manifesto, a link. And Fritz, I want to thank you for being on the show.
Fritz Gilbert 17:39
Thank you, Rennie. Always a pleasure. And let's not wait two years before we talk again. You're always a pleasure to talk to and I wish you the best of luck with all the things you're involved in.
Rennie Gabriel 17:48
Thank you. And to all of those who are listening, if you'd like to know how books, movies and Society programs you to be poor, and what the cure is, then log on to wealthonanyincome.com/TEDx. You'll hear my TEDx talk and can request a free 9-Step Roadmap to Complete Financial Choice® and Philanthropy. And receive a weekly email with tips, techniques, or inspiration around your business or your money. And if you'd like to see how you can increase your wealth, and donate to the causes that touch your heart, please check out our affordable program, Wealth with Purpose - also on the wealthonanyincome.com website. To my listeners, thank you for tuning in. You can listen to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast on your favorite platform, and please rate review and subscribe. Until next week, be prosperous. Bye bye for now.